• Email Link
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Digg

By Robert Owens Scott and W. Mark Richardson

In Matthew's gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that the parables reveal "what has been hidden from the foundation of the world" (13:35). The parables question the very standards on which human culture is built: "the last shall be first," "blessed are the meek," "those who lose their life will keep it."

Today we hear a lot of talk about change. Is it possible that this frequently voiced desiremay indicate that we are not simply looking to rearrange things according to our old standards? Are we ready to question the standards themselves? The current climate crisis places us into the kind of dire situation that can spur humans to engage in bottom-up change that restructures our very way of being."Within the lifetime of the generation born today the planet could either be terminally ill, or on a path to sustainable recovery,"writes Timothy Gorringe in his influential book, A Theology of the Built Environment: Justice, Empowerment, Redemption. The question is whether we will find the courage, vision, and compassion to go beyond the proverbial rearranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic to create lasting sustainability.

Gorringe recognizes that, in the public sphere, "the Church is one small interest group amongst countless others," but he reminds us that Christian theology has a role to play as a "dialogue partner."Take, for example, the idea of abundance. "I came that theymay have life, and have it abundantly," says Jesus (John 10:10b). But what is abundance? Our culture has defined it as having your piece of the pie, increasing spending power,moving up in the world. The Church has often fallen into the same pattern,making spiritual connections among faith, affluence, and capitalism. The theme turns up in civic life, as well: a few days after the shock of 9/11, national leaders told Americans to show their resilience by going shopping. But while we remain under the spell of old standards, there is uneasiness below the surface.Accumulation and consumption have not proven to be sufficient measures of abundance.

What if, in the rethinking of our standards, wemade quality of community, civic life, and relationships ourmeasure of abundance?What if achieving just and sustainablemodes of living with others and with the natural world, rather than acquisitiveness, became the goal around which we organized our lives? What if this standard determined what wasmeant by good architecture, well-managed communities, and successful standards of transportation and communication infrastructures?

Community as Sacrament

Jewish and Christian scriptures are replete with descriptions of households, cities, heavenly banquets - all pointing to community as a central aspect of spirituality. For Christians, the primary sacrament of Holy Communion addresses the co-inherence of God and humanity, and defines the person as fundamentally a social reality. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul condemns those who come to the table eating and drinking and ignoring those who are left out. Is it possible that our understanding of our lives together could be transformed froma consumerist view to one that is sacramental?

The burgeoning interest in "greening" our parishes has the potential to stir our sensitivity to amore profound social and natural ecology.Wemay come to see ourselves as part of a commonwealth: a society that represents a differentiated whole, where the measure of well being in our individual lives is linked to the health of the whole. Onemight say that faithfulness to God is measured by the quality of relationships that define our life together.

Changing Our Story

The challenge is that, in order to achieve sustainability,"wemust eliminate exactly those forms of non-essential production and consumption that our economic and political systems are designed to promote," economistDavid C.Korten told a gathering in Seattle last spring.His solution is one that faith communities already embrace: "We need to grow strong, caring communities in which we getmore of our human satisfaction from caring relationships and less from material goods."Korten locates the mechanism for bringing about such change in the way a culture understands its own story.He calls for a shift fromthe dominant story of empire to the cooperative paradigm of "earth community."

Environmental justice activist Majora Carter, founder of Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx), knows firsthand what happens when a community changes its story. She witnessed it when, led by her dog, she discovered a path to the Bronx River behind what she described as "just another illegal garbage dump in the neighborhood."She obtained a $10,000 seed grant to spearhead the creation of the first waterfront park in that neighborhood in more than 60 years."It was the beginning of our community seeing ourselves in a different way," she says, "recognizing that just because our city and our state decided we should be considered the repository for all the noxious facilities that wealthier - and usually whiter - communities could afford to avoid, that we could see ourselves in a different light."Her work, now recognized with aMacArthur "Genius" fellowship, focuses on alleviating poverty and remediating the environment through the development of a green economy.Carter says that SSBx trains "people who have been dismissed as part of a disposable economy" to do the ecological restoration work our communities need.

What the Church Can Do With economists echoing the Sermon on theMount, and environmentalists talking like liberation theologians, does the Church have a role? Carter began reaching out to faith communities because, "it seemed like, frankly, you guys weremuch better organizers than we could ever be.We need to have the voice of wisdom, of spirituality, leading this discussion just asmuch as an environmental activist organization." Gorringe points out that congregations can be environmental activists, as well.He's enthusiastic about Eco-Congregations, an ecumenical organization of parishes committed tomaking as few demands as possible on carbon resources. "If one took that seriously as a vibrant community, it would be a tremendous beacon," he told us in a recent interview. Korten finds hope in "our distinctive human capacity for reflection and intentional choice;" aspects of life that faith communities nurture as spiritual practices.

Perhaps most importantly, after two millennia of living with the conviction that the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Mt. 4:17), the Church knows something about maintaining hope when the evidence at hand could easily lead to despair. Entering the conversation of civic life is a way to re-conceive the common good, to make alliances with others who share a similar vision and are ready to roll up their sleeves with us to begin the work of revitalizing our cities and smaller communities. The transformation we must undergo in order to survive and thrive is huge. But, as Mother Teresa reminded us, "God doesn't call us to be successful, but to be faithful."

Robert Owens Scott is the director of Trinity Institute. The Rev.W. Mark Richardson, Ph.D. is Trinity Institute's Senior Theological Fellow and professor of systematic theology at the General Theological Seminary.

Return to:
Radical Abundance
A Trinity News Companion